In general, at the time of sale of skin care cosmetics or beauty appliances (skin care device: esthetic care devices), for example, a skin is photographed in a magnified manner using a camera for a skin in order to know the skin condition, and after the skin condition is grasped, the sale of a skin care cosmetic, a facial cleansing appliance, or a tool for skin care is made in accordance with the skin condition.
In such a case, it is necessary to visit a store in which the camera for the skin is placed, and a store staff who can determine the skin condition from photographed image data and advice a method for skin care through the skin condition is present. However, it is tiresome to visit the store, and it is tiresome to visit the store and get the recommendation of the purchase of a product after receiving the above-described service, and accordingly, it is difficult to regularly photograph the skin condition.
Thus, techniques have been proposed which allow a user to be capable of photographing the skin by himself/herself by connecting a digital camera for a skin as a peripheral device to a portable wireless terminal which is accessible to the Internet via a wireless telephone line or another wireless communication line such as a mobile phone, a smartphone or a tablet, or by mounting a lens module provided with a conversion lens for photographing of the skin to a built-in digital camera of the portable wireless terminal, for example.
Further, systems have been proposed which enable analysis of a skin condition without a visit to a store for sale of cosmetics by transmitting image data photographed using a portable wireless terminal to a server of a trader that provides analysis of the skin condition from the image data of the skin (see Patent Literatures 1 to 5, for example). In this case, for example, the analysis of a measurement result is automatically performed, or measurement data is displayed to input a result of the analysis to an operator in the server that receives the measurement data.
In this case, it is necessary to make a purchase or the like of the digital camera for the skin or the lens module for the skin, but it is possible to regularly perform the measurement of the skin using such a skin measurement system without giving a great burden to the user.
In addition, it is possible to apply the above-described camera to photographing of the skin when a change in a surface condition of, for example, a leaf or a fruit of a plant as a crop, other than the skin is measured or recorded, or when a condition in long-term degradation of a surface of a structure such as a wall is measured or recorded.
In this case, it is possible to perform photographing and recording at a low cost without requiring great capital investment, for example, in a case in which a change of a surface condition of a crop is measured in a farm, or a case in which a change of a surface condition of a vegetable or a foliage plant in a home garden is photographed and recorded at an ordinary home.